As everyone and his dog has had a word or two to say about Jon McLaughlin, we must admit we on Ibrox Noise may look like we’ve been targeting the goalie.
And it is true we don’t rate him. Anyone with any sense can tell he isn’t a Rangers class goalkeeper – not his fault, but just a fact.
Hence the criticism has to be the decision by Gio to make him first choice, despite no evidence he was good enough to make that step up.
Remember the good old days at Man City, where the goalkeeping tussle between Joe Hart and Shay Given led to the Irishman quitting, after the second choice was given the jersey. It turned out a decent piece of management, given the-then 23-year old was on the rise and close to being England’s number one.
Let’s just say 34-year old Jon Mclaughlin isn’t quite at that level, with a career spent in England’s League One.
So Gio’s decision to anoint him as the first choice is on him, no one else.
In truth, genuinely, we actually like McLaughlin – as a deputy or even third choice. He’s a solid enough goalkeeper at low end football, like early cup rounds or a visit from bottom-feeders in the SPL.
But as soon as the level spikes up, he is out of his depth – true, he did ok v Lech Poznan in the UEL and had the finest night of his career in Holland (albeit they were fairly routine saves for a half-decent goalie) but when the real pressure hit him at Parkhead he collapsed.
And that’s on Gio, not McLaughlin.
It was Gio and the club who made McLaughlin the first choice, overlooking the extremely promising Robby McCrorie who had ALREADY shone in an Old Firm, and Allan McGregor who can be relied upon for the big occasions.
Did McGregor sign his new deal knowing he would only be used in domestic cups? Surely he wouldn’t have signed on for that?
And McLaughlin had already been awarded a new two-year deal earlier in the year so his next 24 months were sorted.
No, it’s Gio who must take responsibility for this decision.
As we have repeatedly said, we’re well aware ‘there were another 10 players out there’ (which seems to be the new buzzphrase to justify a substandard goalie) but at the end of the day, it would have been better to blame them for being rotten and praise the goalie for at least getting us a point with some fine saves.
And that was Gio’s call, no one else’s.
100% correct , another bad GVB call . Its starting to look like in GVB we don’t trust as he makes similar mistakes and allows our key and only crtical opponent to once again run away with the mickey mouse Spfl …
Agree 100% ,all this slagging the players performances , blaming the signings on the board and wilson etc .The buck stops with the manager ,no player will ever say ” drop me i am not good enough” .The selling of katic ,signing of davies ,not trusting yilamz in big games,also we dont look fit? perhaps the board do not trust his judgment on players anymore ? can we really afford to splash 10 million on another 2 POTENTIAL disasters like davies and yilmaz ..would you hand him anymore ?.All I seem to be seeing is mistake ,mistake ,mistake from gio and coaching staff now ,and it is already starting to cost us ,hibs and them when I thought it might be later in season . I hope he can turn it around starting tomorrow ….still hurting and raging from saturday tbh .
Surely we didn’t keep McGregor just to play in domestic cups. What’s the point of that? He’s been there and done it all before and there’s little point in giving him 6 games a season. That would be the perfect opportunity to blood young McCrorie. The whole goalkeeping scenario is a total mess and I can only imagine that McLaughlin is the only one happy with the current situation.
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